Tax collection in many states down, 41% shortfall in Bihar, says Sushil Modi

Modi reiterated that the tax rates on 80% items, currently in the 28% goods and services tax (GST) bracket, may be lowered soon after the GST council meeting slated to be held at Guwahati on November 10.

Tax collection is down this year in many states with the shortfall in tax collection in Bihar so far being 41.5% , Bihar deputy chief minister and convenor of the ministers’ panel on the GST network Sushil Kumar Modi said here on Wednesday.

“Tax collection also declined in other states including Madhya Pradesh (25%), Assam (26.8%) and Jharkhand (31.1%), but Bihar’s case is serious,” he said, adding that the state could gain more if tax collection improved in coming months.

Reiterating his stand that Bihar being a consumer state was set to gain more under the GST regime, Modi said Bihar stood to gain 54% from IGST (Integrated Goods & Services Tax) collection as settlement revenue in the current fiscal.

Producer states like Gujarat will get about 21% and Maharashtra 20.5% from the IGST. UP and Kerala too get 48% and 46.6% respectively, he added.

Modi reiterated that the tax rates on 80% items, currently in the 28% goods and services tax (GST) bracket, may be lowered soon after the GST council meeting slated to be held at Guwahati on November 10.

“A broad consensus was arrived at on the issue at the previous meeting of the GST council and a decision might be taken at the forthcoming meeting. Most of the articles likely to be taxed less are of daily use,” he added.

Modi was interacting with representatives of different business houses and trade bodies at a meeting convened by the Bihar chamber of commerce and industries.

While exhorting the trading community to embrace the new taxation regime, which had been made it “considerably easy” to deposit taxes, Modi wondered why the filing of tax had come down to 46.4% in September vis-à-vis 58% in August.

He said the commercial taxes department, which he also heads, would conduct a survey in a particular circle to ascertain the exact reason for such steep decline in filing of returns by the traders.

Modi said that the poor collection of taxes post GST might have a far-reaching implication on revenue collection of the state, even though the Centre had assured protection of 14% growth in tax revenue on the basis of collection in the year 2015-16.

Justifying the GST and demonetisation as moves for a clean, transparent and honest economy, the Deputy CM said both were complementary to each other. “Demonetisation yielded deposit of about Rs 42,000 cash in banks Bihar, which is about Rs 25,000 crore more than the normal. Those accounts, which saw abnormal deposit during the note exchange would be probed for source of income,” added Modi.